GM’s purchase of Cruise takes a bit out of competitors Volkswagen and Renault, some of whose models use an autopilot system developed by Cruise.
Photograph: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Detroit automotive giant General Motors has acquired Cruise Automation, a Silicon Valley maker of driverless cars, as it moves to head off a challenge to its dominance from some of the tech world’s biggest companies.

GM’s acquisition of Cruise “provides our company with a unique technology advantage that is unmatched in our industry”, said GM executive vice-president Mark Reuss. “We intend to invest significantly to further grow the talent base and capabilities already established by the Cruise team.”

And it’s also a way for the company to take a bite out of two competitors: Cruise’s main product, the Cruise RP-1, was an autopilot system that could be installed in cars made by Audi (owned by Volkswagen) and Nissan (owned by Renault).

General Motors said in a statement Friday it was interested in the startup because of its “deep software talent and rapid development capability to further accelerate GM’s development of autonomous vehicle technology”.

The purchase comes as Apple, Alphabet, Uber and other tech companies are all working on self-driving car projects.

Sam Altman, president of startup fund Y Combinator and an investor in the company, said that Cruise’s software and hardware was far ahead of the curve and that the acquisition by GM would give it a chance to expand.

“There aren’t that many companies in the sector,” Altman pointed out. “There’s a handful of others but not a lot.” The technology is mostly the province of tech and auto giants from Apple to Daimler that have added automated driving to their R&D projects – Cruise is one of the few startups.

Cruise hadn’t yet shipped commercial units by the time of the acquisition but it was well into road-testing. In January, an autopilot-to-human-pilot transition went awry in San Francisco when the pilot computer overcorrected to prevent changing lanes; the resulting fender-bender with a Nissan Leaf caused no injuries.

Perhaps the largest problem with self-driving car technology is the variable condition of roadway markings that are easily readable by carbon-based drivers but less legible to their silicon counterparts. As dangerous driving jobs such as long-haul shipping inch toward greater automation, local governments have begun to “brighten up lane-striping” on highways in states such as Nevada, according to that state’s department of transportation. Cruise is currently legal only on California highways.

“The road to new technology is a really difficult one, so I’m sure there will be more accidents along the way,” said Altman. “But I think we’ll get to a point where it’s much safer than human.”